Skip to main content

Artificial intelligence discovers dozens of mysterious cosmic signals

One of astronomy’s controversial mysteries is now being investigated by artificial intelligence.

A team of researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project spearheaded by the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a machine learning algorithm to sift through cosmic data and identify fast radio bursts, strange and energetic pulses thought to emanate from far-off galaxies. No one knows for sure what causes these radio emissions but theories abound — from highly magnetized neutron stars battling black holes to signs of alien life.

Recommended Videos

In a recent study, the SETI researchers used a customized A.I. system to discover dozens of previously unidentified fast radio bursts from a source some 3 billion light-years away. The fast radio bursts were picked out from a data set that had already been analyzed by astronomers.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“Artificial Intelligence has seen very rapid development in recent years and its application in medicine, security, finance, and everyday object recognition have already reached certain level of maturity,” Gerry Zhang, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student who helped develop the new machine-learning algorithm, told Digital Trends. “Astronomy represents a relatively unexplored area for A.I. The very large volume of data that astronomers collect present a challenging playground for state-of-the-art A.I. Radio astronomical data themselves presents challenges of large scale and high noise. Learning to apply A.I. to such new data is challenging and fruitful.”

To make the discovery, Zhang and his team used a convolutional neural network, a type of algorithm modeled off the human brain, which has been used to find craters on the moon and help detect earthquakes.

In their recent study, the researchers trained their algorithm on simulated signals, teaching it to recognize signs of fast radio bursts, and then “let the trained network loose on the data containing the real signals,” Zhang said. The result was the discovery of 72 signals that astronomers had previously missed.

The new findings help chip away at the current cosmic mystery of where the fast radio bursts come from. Is it aliens? Probably not. But it could be. Either way, it’s a mystery worth getting to the bottom of. What astronomers need now is more data and better systems to analyze the information.

“Fast radio bursts are one of the most recently discovered unknown signals in astronomy,” Zhang said. “With new instruments being designed for them coming online, [they are] well-poised to be one of the unknowns that will be solved within the next five to 10 years.”

A paper on the research was recently accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Dyllan Furness
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
Group wants to launch a telescope to study black holes from space
Artist concept of the proposed BHEX network.

Black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the universe, and a new mission proposal suggests launching a space telescope specifically to study them. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) group, which took both the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019 and the first-ever image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy in 2022, has plans for a new mission called the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX).

The idea of BHEX is to use a space-based telescope to collect even more detailed information from black holes, as there is less interference from water vapor when viewing them from above the Earth's atmosphere. The aim would be to combine data from this telescope with the many telescopes on the ground that are already used in the EHT project. The next phase of the project is a collaboration between the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

Read more
See the majestic Southern Pinwheel Galaxy in this Dark Energy Camera image
Twelve million light-years away lies the galactic masterpiece Messier 83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. Its swirling spiral arms display a high rate of star formation and host six detected supernovae. This image was captured with the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

An image from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) shows a striking celestial sight: the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, a gorgeous face-on galaxy that is one of the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxies in the sky. Also known as Messier 83, the galaxy is bright enough that it can even be seen with binoculars, but this image from a 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope shows the kind of stunning detail that can be picked out using a powerful instrument.

"This image shows Messier 83’s well-defined spiral arms, filled with pink clouds of hydrogen gas where new stars are forming," explains NOIRLab from the National Science Foundation, which released the image. "Interspersed amongst these pink regions are bright blue clusters of hot, young stars whose ultraviolet radiation has blown away the surrounding gas. At the galaxy’s core, a yellow central bulge is composed of older stars, and a weak bar connects the spiral arms through the center, funneling gas from the outer regions toward the core. DECam’s high sensitivity captures Messier 83’s extended halo, and myriad more distant galaxies in the background."

Read more
Watch SpaceX fire up Starship spacecraft engines ahead of 7th test flight
SpaceX performing a static fire test of its Starship rocket in December 2024.

SpaceX has shared a video (below) showing a static fire test of its Starship spacecraft at the spaceflight company’s Starbase site near Boca Chica, Texas.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1868436135468552361

Read more